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I must say that I like my soda. I have cut back a lot in the past few months. I can drink either diet or regular. My question is which one should I be drinking?

Answer: neither.

But, since you will be drinking it, here's the issue, if you're in the USA which I think you might be, they have different ingredients in their fizzy pop, the sugared version, from what I gather does not have just sugar but also HCFS, I believe...and that is not a great thing for the body.

So, although, the sugar version has no sugar replacements and makes it the far better choice overall in the UK, that doesn't necessarily apply to the same version in the USA where both the sugar-free and the sugared versions may not be so great for the person.

I know where you're coming from. I'm a sodaholic myself. I used to drink anywhere from 12-18 cans of Mountain Dew daily.

Here lately I've been drinking coca-cola, which is a little better for you than MD, but I've only been drinking maybe 3-4 bottles per day. I know it's not good still, but much better than 12 cans of MD.

I replaced sugared pops a while back for coke zero and honestly I think coke zero and diet pop was worse than the sugar packed drinks.

Water is obviously the better solution, but I'm like you, I'll give up all the ridiculous foods but I just can't give up my tall glass of soda.

Sugar is not great for your body. And diet regardless of artificial sweetener will have adverse effects in large doses. Many artificial sweeteners are known to cause cancers in rats and mice whether this applies directly to humans is still unknown. I get headaches when i drink over 5 cans in one sitting, so there is just one side effect. I may have a potential hypothesis for this. I believe the body attempts to use the artificial sweetener as real sugar, this artificial sweetener acts as a competitive inhibitor in the glucose pathway to the brain causing headaches.

What do you fear more; potential obesity and diabetes or potential cancers?

Sugar is not great for your body. And diet regardless of artificial sweetener will have adverse effects in large doses. Many artificial sweeteners are known to cause cancers in rats and mice whether this applies directly to humans is still unknown. I get headaches when i drink over 5 cans in one sitting, so there is just one side effect. I may have a potential hypothesis for this. I believe the body attempts to use the artificial sweetener as real sugar, this artificial sweetener acts as a competitive inhibitor in the glucose pathway to the brain causing headaches.

What do you fear more; potential obesity and diabetes or potential cancers?

So when push comes to shove go with regular soda? Does coke zero have the artificial sweeteners in it too? I'm assuming it probably does since it doesn't have any sugars....

Regular soda...I don't like the idea of pumping sugar into the body hour after hour. Over the long run nothing good can come of this. Diet soda...I do not fully understand the impact of the contents of diet soda, so I try to limit intake.

If I am going to have a Summer binge day where we're at a family gathering and I have to drink soda, I will always go for the diet. I don't need the extra calories or sugar. The lesser of 2 evils.

I do not much care for diet. I think it was because when my mom was pregnant with me that is what she drank. now oddly enough she can not stand the stuff either. Must have just been one of those cravings she had.